Page 73 of Baby I'm Yours

I frown as I fold my arms over my chest. “Since when have you been into things like that?”

She shrugs. “Oh, I don’t know. It just seems interesting, that’s all. Why have I been given a new lease on life if not toexplore new things?” I offer a grunt in response, but she only laughs. “You don’t have to come with me if you don’t want to. You can go to a coffee shop and check your email or call your assistant and yell about the Harrison deal some more.”

“The Morrison deal,” I correct. “And I wasn’t yelling. I was assertively encouraging Dana to get tough with the old man. He shook hands on the purchase price. Trying to raise that price forty-eight hours before the deal is set to close is bad form. Not to mention a waste of time. I will not be moved.”

Mom nods, her smile fading. “Youarestubborn. That’s for sure.”

“I wonder who I learned that from?”

But she doesn’t smile this time. Instead, she decides to take my teasing seriously. “Well, from me, of course. But having my mind set on achieving one outcome, at any cost, hasn’t always served me well, darling.”

“You’re alive,” I remind her, as grateful for that as ever. “You wouldn’t be if you’d given up when everyone said you were out of options.”

She inclines her head in acknowledgement of my point. “Yes, but if I hadn’t been so stubbornly determined to honor my marriage vows, I would have left your father so much sooner. I could have spared us both so much suffering and pain.”

My jaw clenches.

Before I can comment on that, she adds, “And if I hadn’t pushed so hard for you to settle down and start a family, maybe you wouldn’t have rushed things with Elaina. And maybe the two of you would still be together right now.”

Thankfully, our waiter arrives at that moment, delivering lobsters cooked in a wood fire oven that smell absolutely delicious.

Too bad my mother has effectively killed my appetite…

But it’s better to eat than talk about the one who got away. “This looks great,” I say, collecting my fork and knife. “It’s nice that they shell it for you. Much less mess.”

“But sometimes mess is okay,” Mom says, making no move to reach for her silverware. “Just because you hit a messy patch, it doesn’t mean you should give up on love.”

“Mom, please,” I say.

“Won’t you please tell me what went wrong between you?” she presses. “I know you said it was a difference of opinion that made a future together impossible, but I can’t imagine an opinion so important that it would come between me and someone I loved as much as you loved her. I know you loved Elaina, Hunter. I could see it every time you looked at her. And she loved you, too. It was real and so special.”

Real…

She has no idea, but I can’t tell her it was a lie from the start. I’m her only relative, the only person she knows she can count on, no matter what. Giving her a reason to doubt my trustworthiness would only hurt her, and that’s the last thing I want.

So, you’re lying to spare her, just like she and Elaina both lied to spare you. Funny how that’s acceptable for you—for your mother, even—but you hung Elaina out to dry.

“I don’t want to discuss it,” I say, with more heat than I intended. Pulling in a breath, I add in a gentler voice, “Please, let’s just…enjoy the meal.”

“All right,” Mom says. “Of course.”

We eat in silence for a while, the clink of silverware mixing with the murmur of other diners’ conversations and the cry of seagulls. The restaurant sits right on the harbor, its wide windows offering a view of boats bobbing in their moorings and the birds circling in the increasingly pink sky.

It’s a beautiful view.

And I hate it.

Even if Mom hadn’t mentioned Elaina, every time I glance at the ocean, I think of the view from her apartment in Sea Breeze. Of the way the water glittered as we sipped wine on her tiny patio in the chilly fall air that first weekend together, when I was still stupid enough to think it would be easy to say goodbye when our fuck fest was done.

But it was always more than fucking with her. It was raw and honest and the closest I’ve ever felt to another human being. I was so positive that I could trust her, that there was no possible way she could be hiding things from me.

And then she proved I was as big a fool as all the other chumps I’d made fun of in my life—the men so besotted with their much-younger wives they couldn’t see they were being manipulated. Played.

Elaina played me, feigning innocence from the moment I got the call to come to the hospital until I confronted her the next day.

If Mom hadn’t woken up, if I’d been forced to rely on answers from Elaina, would I ever have learned the truth?

I don’t know. But the thought of living the rest of my life oblivious to the fact that my wife was keeping a massive secret from me is all it takes to firm up my resolve never to see her again.

---